iBooks Author: Book elements overview

Book Title: The book cover that appears in the iBooks Store and on readers’ iBooks bookshelf. Type over the placeholder text to add the book’s title.

Intro Media: Add an image or a short video (10 seconds or less is recommended) that appears when the reader opens the book. To have the book open directly to the table of contents, leave the Intro Media empty.

Table of Contents: Readers can use the table of contents to navigate to specific locations in the completed book. iBooks Author automatically creates and updates the table of contents, and you can further customize the table of contents if you like.

Glossary: Add terms throughout your book that readers can tap or click to view definitions. All defined terms also appear in the book’s glossary. If you donʼt add any terms, your book wonʼt have a glossary (but you can’t delete the Glossary element from a template).

Chapters and sections: A chapter can contain pages, and it can contain sections with pages. For example, a book about mammals could have a chapter called “Bears,” which could contain sections such as “Polar Bears,” “Grizzly Bears,” and so on. You can also use sections for self-contained content within a chapter, such as lessons, activities, or case studies.

Each template contains several chapter and section layouts that you can customize. There are also sections preformatted for copyright, dedication, and foreword information. As you add content to a chapter or section, pages are added automatically as needed. You can also add pages first and then create your content.

Tip: To optimize the viewing experience, create more smaller chapters rather than fewer larger chapters.

Important: You can change the order of chapters and sections by dragging them in the Book pane, but you can’t reorder individual pages by dragging them. To rearrange content within a chapter or section, you must edit the content.

All templates include placeholders for media and text. Drag media over a media placeholder to add it; you don’t have to delete the placeholder item first.